Home   Forum   Wiki   Notes   Register   FAQ   Sitemap   About Us   Contact Us  

Is TFM in a vicious cycle of degeneration?

Topic started by rajaG (@ 208.24.179.211) on Tue Sep 26 15:43:14 EDT 2000.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

I have checked the archives and for some reason a topic with a similar heading is gone!
So here's is some food for thought.

1. Actors like Ajith, Vijay, etc commanding MDs to copy from "English CDs" and set them to Indian lyrics.
2. MDs like Deva, Sirpi copying left, right and center, in situations excluding item 1 above.
3. Bad pronunciation of singers.
4. MDs like SAR repeating the same tune over and over and over......you get the point (and many times in the same film)
5. ARR not putting any effort in re-recording at all- merely playing the songs in the movie with slower/faster versions.
6. ARR, Srikanth (Deva's son), etc blatantly indulging in lip-synch activities. Other lesser known artists, engaged in karaoke singing. While this does not directly affect TFM it speaks for the lack of confidence in the talents of the artists.
7. Many occurences of really stupid lyrics - though most of them may be blamed on the director/producers adamant insistence or same boring situations.
8. Absence of thespians who could inspire Kannadasan, TMS, SPB, PS etc to give their best.

---

Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: rajaG (@ 207.43.195.204) on: Fri Feb 28 16:29:27 EST 2003
  
  Udhaya: I do like songs from anbE sivam and kaadhal virus. Haven't heard "Pop Carn" yet:-)
  
  For example, the song Udhaya Udhaya is an awesome melody sung very well by SS and HH. However, throughout the song SS uses 'ha' instead of 'ga'. I absolutely know that I (the female singer) don't have to follow the original nor is it an expectation from the audience. But everytime I encounter that song, that particular absence of attention to detail (or glaring mistake) irks me.
  
  I know you don't care much for Mano's singing but I like his song from Padaiyappa - Kicku ErudhE. No! It is not ARR's answer to Kadhal Oviyam. But it is a good song with decent lyrics and nice percussion arrangement. But suddenly there is this ugly sambandhaa sambandhamillaadha 'sajnaa rE sajnaa rE'.
  Honestly, I lose my involvement with the song at that stage.
  Frankly, the gimmick factor has become a compulsion with many compositions - whether it is in the sounds used, chorus, bad pronunciation, or lyrics. Call me old school - but I can't sing seriously with all the emotion 'ai viral idukkil Olive eNNai poosi'.
  There are 2 versions of ElE machchi machchi - Tippu + Udit and Kamal + Udit. Why did Kamal miss the obvious Kamal + Tippu combo? Why should I be distracted with Udit saying 'en mulaikkulla' and send me squirming?
  
  
  
  That's what I am talking about.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• From: Udhaya (@ 64.172.105.149) on: Fri Feb 28 17:10:08 EST 2003
  
  RajaG,
  The song list I put up doesn't have any such pronunciation problems. You know that I'm squarely against these singers, I still haven't fully accepted Hariharan for you to complain about Sadhana to me. Sadhana at least brings some vocal expertise (the ghazal way she turns on the word kaadhal and stresses the word for a few extra seconds in "Udhaya" is amazing), Udit, Vasundra and Suckwinder are hopeless.
  
  The gimmicks you talk about are true, I accept and hope it's an aberration that will go away like ARR's use of kids' voices.
  
  The lyrics are actually getting better if you compare the good ones today to the good ones of 5 years ago.
  
  
• From: Are Yaar (@ 203.115.31.67) on: Fri Feb 28 22:38:12 EST 2003
  
  >>>However, throughout the song SS uses 'ha' instead of 'ga'. I absolutely know that I (the female singer) don't have to follow the original nor is it an expectation from the audience. But everytime I encounter that song, that particular absence of attention to detail (or glaring mistake) irks me.
  
  perfectly logical...nyaayamaana onnu.
  
  I am against Tamil kolai.
  I wondered how ARR would have used Sukwinder in Udhaya (remember Suk S sang only few - 2 to 3 Tamil songs under ARR)...I thought it will be another Tamil Kolai...which I would have to bear for the sake of ARR...but good to see ARR used him to only sing "Rehanuma..rehanuma"....
  His redition of the word "Thiruvalli keni Raani" is quite interesting though.
  
  
• From: vijay (@ 202.166.126.226) on: Mon Mar 3 10:01:10 EST 2003
  
  Been away for a few days and really missed reading all the posts in this thread.
  
  "but I can't sing seriously with all the emotion 'ai viral idukkil Olive eNNai poosi'.
  "
  RajaG, you are bang on! In fact a couple of pages before your post I had passed a similar comment on the same line of this song :-) Talk about song spoilers.
  
  RajaG's problem could also be a shift in the modern construction of songs where the short sandhams don't offer the luxury of gamakams and sangathis which the singers of old enjoyed under MSV, IR or ARR in the early days. Whereas sandhams before were like full sentences, now we have sentence fragments glued together with music and chorus interludes. If you thought this was hard on singers, imagine the agony of lyricists.
  
  
  Udhaya, good point. I think we could make a distinction between a singer's melody and what I would like to call a pure listener's melody. (There might be songs that fit into both categories quite easily)
  But ever since MSV's era the shift was towards orchestral melodies that were not necessarily singer's melodies. For example "Poongaatru Pudhidhaanadhu" is great to listen to but try humming the pallavi alone without any supporting orchestration or whatsoever and you will have to sing "Poongatru", pause for a couple of seconds then hum "Pudhidhaanadhu" then pause for a couple of secs and so on. It would be an awkward exercise :-) But while listening to the song you dont feel it because the gaps are filled beautifully with the necessary chords and made into one continuous smooth flowing piece of music.
  
  
  Quite a few songs of IR fall into this category. It was just his style. That might make a singer's job difficult(even for a bathroom hummer like myself :-) ) but nevertheless the quality and the thought put into those songs can probably not be disputed at all.
  
  The problem, as far as I am concerned, with the present scene is there are few songs that fiT into either category for me. We can forget about singer's melodies altogether. They are a rarity.
  
  But even the listener's melodies are'nt that appealing to me to make up for that loss.
  You guys have discussed a variety of reasons. I will add(at the risk of angering a few ARR fans) that oneof the reasons for the current situation is probably because the best MD of today is ot prolific enough. There were probably same number of bad works if not more coming from the 80s, but still the number of good songs/year coming from IR ALONE would probably have been more than the total number of good songs/year that we get from all MDs combined these days (irrespective of whether the precentage of good works in the 80s were higher or not, I suspect they were'nt). I think our personal tastes side we will all agree with this atleast to some extent. A quick look at the discography from the 80s will tell us that.
  
  I would prefer more works from the current popular and topmost talent, ARR, rather than the market being shared by a bunch of ARR-wannabes and ad jingle composers just because ARR cant find time to do more albums because of his international music assignments or whatsoever. He is probably not losing much money-wise but the TFM listeners are. In fact, SPB himself, who is rarely critical of anything in public, recently commented that anyone who could play a KB becomes a MD in TFM these days.I say a freaking Amen to that. He is probably referring to Dhina, Bharani, Imaan etc. etc.
  
  And one more thing, be wary of showering praises on Sabesh-Murali. They belong to the guilty-until-proven-innocent category IMO, having been Deva's sidekicks for years. That salsa number you mentioned could probably be a straight lift :-)
  
  
• From: kiru (@ 192.138.150.249) on: Mon Mar 3 13:03:41 EST 2003
  
  vijay..good observation about 'poongARRU' song. I have always found this a little weird. IR's 'hip' songs are like this, if I am not mistaken.
  Re: Deva @ bros. I know they do a lot of copying. But I have one thing positive to say about him. He is surely a 'natural'. The music never looks 'artificially decorated'. It just flows. I was listening to 'aasai' in my car on my morning commute to work. The pulveLi song copied from Rod Stewart's concluding guitar piece, is a good example of building a song out of a small bit. New MDs, are 'working' on their songs, rather than 'creating' them (see rajaG's comment on unnecessary choruses etc).
  
  
• From: rajaG (@ 207.43.195.204) on: Mon Mar 3 14:57:53 EST 2003
  
  Just for the record, despite some areas of SS's pronunciation, Udhaya Udhaya uLarugirEn is one of the best melodies of recent times. And the sangathis by SS and HH are awesome and almost non-reproduceable by amateur talents (including your's truly :-) )
  
  
• From: Kupps (@ 203.199.209.101) on: Mon Mar 3 23:16:19 EST 2003
  
  "You guys have discussed a variety of reasons. I will add(at the risk of angering a few ARR fans) that oneof the reasons for the current situation is probably because the best MD of today is ot prolific enough. There were probably same number of bad works if not more coming from the 80s, but still the number of good songs/year coming from IR ALONE would probably have been more than the total number of good songs/year that we get from all MDs combined these days (irrespective of whether the precentage of good works in the 80s were higher or not, I suspect they were'nt). I think our personal tastes side we will all agree with this atleast to some extent. A quick look at the discography from the 80s will tell us that. "
  
  
  Vijay, u read my mind and wrote it. I typed same message a couple of days ago and finally dropped out from posting it, finding that it was bit irrelevant then, for that days flow. Think of 60s u have two prolific composers MSV(TKR) and KVM. They were ruling and you see, a tough time was put before other MDs like V.Kumar and the outcome was superb one from V.Kumar and all. Similarly during IR's era SG were there during his early days, Chandrabose (even though his music had thagaradabba kind of orchestration and others, still his music was mostly original and tunes were better). Now its the era of ARR but he failed to be prolific and the outcome is as SPB said "Now, any KeyBoard Guy could become a MD". Though im not knowledgeble in music, but as a rasigan i can feel the difference. This makes me to vouch for the topic head yes tfm is vicious cycle of degeneration. But at the same time, i hope this be just a transition period and let TFM not get degenerated "for ever" as HFM.
  
  
  
• From: Sharma (@ 61.6.38.132) on: Tue Mar 4 19:52:50 EST 2003
  
  I disagree.
  I believe that ARR is on the right track.
  If you take MSV's era, a vast majority of the songs were hits, and are still remembered.
  ARR's songs also have a high hit percentage. There have been a few duds like Ratchakan but even in those movies, there have been more than one good song.
  
  Coming to IR, his doing 800+ movies has been his undoing. One song from Malayur Mambattiyan, none from Karimedu Karuvvayan, etc etc. There have been 100s of songs of his that have been forgotten and will forever be buried in the gravles of unremembered.
  This numbers game remains just that - adding to numbers, not quality. Announcements are made of 10 songs in this movie, eight music pieces for this movie in 10 mins., etc but what is achieved? No one remembers (except maybe for the hardest of HCIRFs) and these songs becomes part of a statistic. As an experiment, out of the 100s of IR songs in the past five years, how many can you call as "good" songs? There is no need to post your findings here. As long as you get the picture. :)
  
  

---

List all pages of this thread

Post comments